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Monday, August 1, 2011

Emergency Supplies: Sparkie Fire Starter Review

There are a few emergency supplies that I love. They are all small and inexpensive making great additions to a 72 hour kit. Recently my husband Matt went on a weeklong backpacking trip with the Boy Scouts. As he was getting ready he asked "Would it be okay if I took your Shelf Reliance stuff? It would be awesome to test out." He ended up taking all of the emergency supplies I usually take to parties and I thought you might be interested in what he has to say. Here is his first post about his experiences:

Before I went backpacking with the Boy Scouts last month, I raided Heather’s demo products that she usually takes to parties. One of the things I grabbed is the Sparkie Fire Starter. I was looking for something to replace a magnesium bar. After playing with the Sparkie, I don’t ever want to use a magnesium bar again.

The Sparkie is a small, lightweight flint and steel syle fire starter. The striker is built into the handle and it sparks as you push the steel back into the handle. You can either push against a hard flat surface (rock with tinder on it), or you can hold the Sparkie in your hand and push the steel in with your fingers. Both methods will give you a fantastic shower of sparks.

The Sparkie is the best flint style fire starter I have ever seen. I have to clarify that because we were in Teton back country, I never actually started a fire with the Sparkie. After watching the size of the sparks though; I have no doubt that it would be significantly easier than with any of the competing products I have used.